Avatar brings us into a world that we've never seen before. Many films have gotten close, but it was only after seeing Avatar in 3-D that I felt like I'd actually visited an alien world. Much of this was achieved by the subtle use of 3-D, and in the hands of director James Cameron, 3-D becomes truly immersive.
The story of Avatar centers on a paraplegic Marine, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), who goes to Pandora as an "avatar driver." He's taking over for his twin brother who died, and because Jake shares his DNA he's able to use the same avatar body. The avatars are grown in a tank, made up of both alien and human DNA. The avatar drivers are able to animate the alien body and operate in the Pandoran atmosphere, which is poisonous to humans. And with his avatar, Jake is able to walk again.
Jake and the other humans are there because Pandora contains a rare element that humans need to power Earth; but the native Na'vi don't like the intruders and are willing to defend their planet. Because of this, soldiers are there to protect the contractors from the Na'vi and all the other dangers. Jake Sully's first mission with his avatar is to protect scientists, led by Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver), who are collecting samples on Pandora. When Jake Sully gets left behind and attacked by creatures, he's saved by a Na'vi female named Neytiri. Instead of killing Jake, the Na'vi accept Jake into the tribe to teach him about their ways.
In many ways, Pandora is the star of this film. Cameron and his team of designers have created a world where everything is different than what we know. For example, when Jake first walks through the jungle with Neytiri, wherever he steps glows with bioluminescence. Jellyfish-like creatures float in the air. Another creature is a combination of a hammerhead shark and a rhinoceros. There are wonders on this world, like floating mountains and plants that contain the knowledge and memories of the Na'vi. In fact, the universe of Pandora is so detailed that one scientist has written a review of the Science of Avatar, giving Cameron and his crew high marks.
The story of Avatar is in many ways a retelling of the countless genocides that have occurred throughout history. But the one I kept thinking back to was the American Government's war with the Native Americans. We'd like to think that our future leaders wouldn't annihilate an indigenous people on another planet to get to something they want -- but, sadly, I think they would.
Many people have written that Avatar's story is a blatant rip-off of several other films, including Dances with Wolves or even the animated Disney film Pocahontas. This Thompson on Hollywood blog explores the many influences of Avatar, asking the question is Avatar derivative? Sure. But, as Thompson points out, most screenplays are derivative.
A college writing teacher of mine, Charles Johnson, used to tell us if you're able to bring one or two original ideas into a story, then you're doing really well. Avatar borrows from many other films and books -- but it's the combination of the stories that adds up to something original. George Lucas accomplished the same thing with Star Wars.
Like Star Wars, Avatar's special effects are groundbreaking. This is the first time that digital technology has reached a level of realism with human motion and performance. There have been other films that have attempted this with characters, from Jar-Jar from Star WarsEpisode I to Gollum from Lord of the Rings to the The Polar Express. Avatar is the first to get all the elements right and combine this with 3-D technology.
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Now that Avatar has been out for about a month, it's clear that the film has become a phenomenon around the world. Not only has it become the number one movie of 2009 in the United States, it's slowly closing in on the top all-time domestic box office gross. What's even more impressive is it's second only to Titanic in worldwide box office grosses.
Many people wanted James Cameron to fail with Avatar. I'm not sure why, but much of it seems to be centered on Titanic and all the Oscars it won -- and all the money it made. Cameron's one of those rare directors who has the tenacity and perseverance to make films on the scale of Titanic and Avatar. Say what you want about him, but the guy knows how to deliver epic films that are accepted worldwide. (I heard that most Iraqis think that Titanic is the greatest film ever made -- and the American forces have used this to find common ground.)
After I saw Avatar with my 9-year-old son, he had said something to the effect of, "I'm sad that it's over." I've seen in him the same reaction I had to Star Wars when I was a 10-year-old. I suspect for many children, Avatar is going to be their Star Wars.
It is a century from now, and the population of our tired planet has tripled. Finally, drowning in its own toxic waste, starvation and poverty, the population has topped out at a nice even 20 billion.
The Earth is dying, covered with a gray mold of human civilization. Even the moon is spiderwebbed with city lights on its dark side. Overpopulation, over- development, nuclear terrorism, environmental warfare tactics, radiation leakage from power plants and waste dumps, toxic waste, air pollution, deforestation, pollution and overfishing of the oceans, global warming, ozone depletion, loss of biodiversity through extinction... all of these have combined to make the once green and beautiful planet a terminal cess-pool.
I'm a sucker for the X-men movies. Compared to The Fantastic Four, X-men films seem like they should be Oscar winners. Recently, I watched the first three X-men films with my son Cameron, and thought they held up pretty well.
While I expected Wolverine to be sub-par, based on the reviews I saw, I actually found it pretty interesting. Especially interesting was the beginning, which showed that Wolverine already had a special gift (as did his brother) before he got the metal claws. He could heal spontaneously; he was immortal. We watch scenes of both brothers fighting in practically every war since they existed.
We also see what drove Wolverine to go from mere immortal to a certified killing machine.
Definitely worth seeing if you like comic book films or Hugh Jackman.
This film looked great from the previews. Both my boys were excited to see it. But it ended up being a little too serious for kids (after all, Astro Boy is a robot replacement for a scientists' child who dies at the beginning).
Whip it is Drew Barrymore's directorial debut, a coming-of-age story about a girl in a small Texas town who wants to join a rollerderby team.
First, Drew Barrymore's direction is excellent. She was obviously taking notes from Spielberg and all the other directors she's worked with over the years.
Second, Ellen Page is a force of nature. Her performance in Juno was no fluke (all you have to do is watch Hard Candy, which was done before Juno, to see that). There are very few actors who can draw you into a character the way Page does.
Third, I didn't know anything about rollerderby until I saw this film. I always thought it was about women trying to kill each other while skating around in circles. Well, I guess there are rules -- and there is a way to win.
Surrogates could have been a great Science Fiction film. It combines many of the themes and ideas seen in countless other Sci-Fi films (notably The Matrix) to form something unique and entertaining. But a short running time and formulaic plot hold back the film.
Surrogates shows us a world where humans experience their daily lives through robot avatars. The robots go to work and play and the humans stay home in their pajamas, controlling them in the real world. Crime and disease plummet to all-time lows. Everyone looks great and can jump around like a superhero when they need to.
Thomas Greer (Bruce Willis) is a detective in this world. Instead of the weathered, shaved head version of Willis we're used to seeing, we see a smooth-faced version with a full head of hair. Greer and his partner, Jennifer Peters (Rhada Mitchell), are sent to investigate the destruction of two surrogates outside a night club. When they discover one of the surrogate operators is the son of the inventor of surrogate technology, Dr. Lionel Cantor (James Cromwell), everyone knows something is up. But then they find out Cantor's son is dead, as is the operator of the other surrogate -- something that shouldn't happen with the fail-safe switches built into the machines.
But it wasn't this plot that I was interested in. I wanted to know more about these stories, on edges of this plot:
Greer and his wife Maggie (Rosamund Pike) don't see each other at home, except through their surrogates. When Greer wants to take a vacation without their avatars, Maggie objects. She doesn't want her husband to see that she's not the perfect version of herself that she wants to be.
The operator of the female, blonde surrogate that was murdered along with Cantor's son was a man. As the usual detective story crept forward, I kept thinking about that man and realized surrogate technology would enable people to be who they want to be. (This is already a reality with the Internet where you don't really know who you're talking to.)
Parents are encouraged to get surrogates for their children, so they're always safe at home.
Part of society has rejected surrogate technology and lives in reservations where surrogates are forbidden.
A great version of this film would have found the right story to explore the philosophical and moral questions in more detail. Which is why I think you'll see a Surrogates TV series.
One thing that I found extremely odd was the casting of James Cromwell. He practically plays the same character as he did in I, Robot and L.A. Confidential.
One of the most creative children's films I've seen in a long time that explores the theme of parental (and societal) approval. Well worth the price of admission, but I don't recommend seeing this in IMAX 3-D (unless you want to pay a lot).
Steven Soderbergh and Matt Damon team up again in this true-life tale of Mark Whitacre -- an executive who turns on his employer, Archer Daniels Midland. While this is being marketed as a comedy, The Informant! is not as laugh-out-loud funny as those advertisements would like you to think. And while it might have been different than what I expected, I enjoyed it from start to finish.
It's pretty rare that a movie comes out of nowhere and surprises audiences the way District 9 did. In this age of "event" movies that you hear about a year in advance, District 9 quietly appeared at the end of summer and blew audiences away. Three weeks after its release, it's still a trending topic on Twitter and staying in the top 5 at the box office. No small feat in this age of movies that come and go in one week.
In District 9, an alien spacecraft -- as huge and menacing as the ships in Independence Day -- arrives over the skies of Johannesburg, South Africa. After nothing happens, humans open up the ship and find insect-like aliens -- afraid and starving. The aliens are moved to a holding area in the city called District 9.
Twenty years later, the human citizens of Johannesburg have grown tired of sharing their city with the aliens (referred to derisively as "prawns"). The prawns are being shipped out of town to another "District," far away from Johannesburg. The person responsible for managing this effort is Wikus van de Merwe (Sharlto Copley), who works for Multinational United (MNU). Wikus is a bumbling bureaucrat, who's landed this job thanks to marrying an MNU official's daughter.
Wikus and his armed motorcade drive into District 9 and start knocking on doors, asking prawns to sign their "eviction" notices. Things get interesting when Wikus is sprayed with an oil-like substance that starts to mutate his body into one of the prawns. Where the story goes from here is what makes District 9 so original and breathtaking. Let's just say I didn't get up to use the bathroom.
The story behind the production of District 9 is also fascinating. First-time feature director, South African Neill Blomkamp, was working with Peter Jackson on the Halo movie when the plug was pulled. Jackson was so impressed with Blomkamp, he told him to write a script for something else and he'd find the financing.
Blomkamp wrote a script that could take advantage of some of the development he'd already done for Halo. This becomes even more clear when you watch the live-action promo trailer he made for the video game release of Halo 3.
One other thing about the film is it only cost $30 million. After seeing it, you won't believe it. I didn't.
As I watched District 9, I found myself comparing it to Star Wars--mostly, I think, because of how surprised I was with it. But later, when I read more about it, I found other comparisons. Star Wars was also made for relatively little money ($10 million in 1977). George Lucas knew how to take that money and make it look like $50 million. He hired unknown actors (except for Sir Alec Guinness), and put all the money into the sets and the special effects.
Like Lucas, Blomkamp put all the money on the screen. In an interview with Boston.com, he said he kept the costs down by doing the following:
He hired one of his friends to play the lead role (Sharlto Copley). ("We had no $15 million, $20 million star to pay. So that eliminates that expense.")
He knew how to accomplish the effects shots with no research and development ("Because of my background, I know what I can get away with. If we had done R&D [research and development], it would have been $50 million right there.")
He shot it in one of Soweto's poorest neighborhoods, Chiawelo. He hired locals as extras. ("These were seriously impoverished people. Destitute people. The township alone had 70,000 people. But if you hire different groups each day, you get that money into the community.")
All of this is interesting to those who study filmmaking, but it doesn't really matter. District 9 is a great movie regardless of how much it cost, or how it was made. It will surely join the canon of Sci-Fi films and make Blomkamp a star of a director. Whether he stays in this position depends on his next film. I, for one, can't wait to see it.
Having two kids, I sometimes get to see movies that adults wouldn't normally go to or rent. As we've explored our video store, we've found some non-Disney animated gems, including Howl's Moving Castle and Spirited Away. Both films, I found out later, were directed by Hayao Miyazaki, one of Japan's greatest animators.
Today, I took Cameron and his friend MacLean to see the new Miyazaki film, Ponyo. At first, the animation style (anime) of this film matches many second-rate films and children's shows. But in the hands of Miyazaki, Ponyo is like a waking dream. I saw the tagline for this film is "Welcome to a world where anything is possible." That pretty much describes it.
It's ironic that Disney distributed Ponyo. If you remove Miyazaki's thumbprint on this film, you have themes that were also present in TheLittle Mermaid or Pinocchio. You get the feeling that Disney's legendary animation and storytelling is echoing back to the United States by way of Japan.
If you've never seen any of Miyazaki's films, I recommend you go to the video store tonight and rent Howl's Moving Castle (nominated for the Best Animated Film Oscar in 2006) and Spirited Away (won for the Best Animated Film Oscar in 2003). (Give yourself a moment to adjust to the choppy anime animation style. It's not as slick as computer-animated films like Toy Story or Shrek.)
I've always admired the gusto that Quentin Tarantino brings to his films. The latest, Inglourious Basterds, is a mashup of 70s cinema, Westerns, and WWII movies -- told only the way Tarantino could tell it. Don't go into Basterds expecting historical accuracy.
As the trailers have shown, Brad Pitt is in charge of the "Inglourious Basterds" as Aldo Raine. In this case, the Basterds are Jewish American psychopaths who want to torture and scalp Nazis as revenge, sport, or both. But the Basterds make up only one part of the story.
The next part concerns Col. Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), a "Jew Hunter" (he was named by his fans and enemies) who seems to have an almost telepathic ability to stalk his prey. We see him in the first scene, speaking to a French dairy farmer in French. His words at first are friendly and disarming, but after they continue to talk (and switch to English) they become like knives. (Watch the subtitles closely during this scene, as they offer a bit of comic relief during an otherwise tense situation.)
The last threads of the story concern two women. The first, Shoshanna Dreyfus (Melanie Laurent), owns a cinema in France. She also happened to escape from Landa in the first scene, with the French farmer. She, like the Basterds, is also looking for revenge.
The other woman, Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) is a famous German actress who's also a spy. She's going to help the Basterds get into a movie premiere, which will be attended by most of the German High Command (including Hitler himself).
Inglourious Basterds, like most of Tarantino's work, is the kind of film that takes time to understand and appreciate. It wasn't until a few days later that I was thinking about the style of the film. Scenes often border on comedy, which, like Landa's words to the farmer, are meant to disarm the audience. One moment you're watching a kind of cartoonish introduction of one of the Basterds (Stiglitz!), the next someone is getting executed or scalped.
Tarantino, like so many great filmmakers, creates a world that is unique and interesting. Roger Ebert summed it up best in his review when he wrote that the characters in this film "are seen with that Tarantino knack of taking a character and making it a Character, definitive, larger than life, approaching satire in its intensity but not -- quite -- going that far. Let's say they feel bigger than most of the people we meet in movies."
There are few films that capture parenting in all its raw glory. If you haven't had kids yet and want to know what it's like, watch "Marley and Me." If you have one or two kids and are thinking of having another, watch "Marley and Me." Oh, and you'll also find out why having a dog can be such a great adventure.
Marley, the dog, reminded me of my childhood dog, Sunny, a beautiful Irish Setter with a taste for wanderlust. (She got her name from Sun Valley, Idaho, where she was born.) I don't think there was a day that went by that she didn't run away. One time we lost her for months.
Even though she wasn't trained, she could hunt and retrieve. She got car sick. She loved swimming in ponds. She liked chasing golf balls on the golf course in our neighborhood, which sent one golfer in plaid pants into a homicidal rage("I'm going to get my shotgun!").
She slept in my bedroom at the foot of the bed.
Sunny was the kind of dog you see a once, maybe twice, in a lifetime. And so is Marley.
